This invention relates to protective gloves of the type worn by health care professionals when examining or operating upon patients, and more particularly, to an assembly of a surgical-type glove incorporating an illuminator for projecting light toward the work surface being examined or operated upon.
While the following discussion describes the present invention specifically in the context of its most prevalent use in the health care field, it will be understood that the invention is not intended to be so limited and has broader applicability to other fields where surgical-type gloves are normally employed. This would include, for example, its use by workers assembling small electronics parts where a contamination-free environment is essential.
When examining or operating upon an anatomical part of a patient, physicians, dentists and veterinarians will usually have available to them several different forms of lighting for illuminating their field of examination or operation. These include natural light entering the room through windows, overhead general room lighting, and directable high intensity lamps in fairly close proximity to the patient. Oftentimes, circumstances will require that these various sources of illumination be supplemented by a spotlighting type of illumination more examined or operated upon.
One approach for providing such spotlighting has been to incorporate illumination devices in combination with various medical and dental instruments. This type of approach is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,244, issued Apr. 18, 1989, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,434, issued Mar. 26, 1991. In the devices described in these patents, light is transmitted through the bore of the instrument itself or its handle, and projected toward the body part under examination or operation through the distal tip of the instrument or distal ports in the handle. The light source may be, for example, a battery-powered lamp either housed entirely within the bore of the instrument or handle or detachably connected thereto. Alternatively, an optical fiber cable may be used for transmitting light to the bore of the instrument from a light source remote from the instrument.
The devices described in the above patents have certain inherent limitations. The relatively small size of the light output ports and their close proximity to the work surface, limit the work surface area that can be effectively illuminated by the projected light beam and permit little variance in the angle of projection of the light beam. Furthermore, since these devices rely upon the instrument or its handle being of hollow construction, this approach lacks universal applicability for use with all types of medical and dental instruments.
Regardless of the type and construction of the instrument being employed for performing any particular procedure, the professional's hand holding and manipulating the instrument will almost invariably be covered with a thin rubber or flexible plastic glove. Such surgical gloves are of standard construction well known in the art, and are universally worn over the hands of health care professionals when examining or operating upon body parts of patients.